totoro cupcakes!

My friend had a birthday party this weekend, and I surprised her with cupcakes that look like My Neighbor Totoro (since we share a mutual love for the movie). This is cheating a bit in the "recipe" department, since the cupcakes are just boxed Funfetti mix. The frosting is homemade, though, and still needs a bit of tweaking (these little guys melted just slightly on the way over, in the hot car). I'm determined to perfect the recipe.

The detailing was easy, since I had bought one of those "gel icing" tubes from the grocery store in black. Instead of cutting the top off, I pricked it with a pin to get a very fine line. If you're curious about the gray colored icing, I just used 2 drops each of red, blue, and yellow food coloring and mixed very well. It turned out to be the perfect shade!

eggless chewy chocolate cookies

I have a confession to make to all of you: I am terrible at baking cookies. I consider myself a very good cook and a good baker. For some reason, when it comes to making cookies, something goes wrong. My cookie disasters have ranges from rock-hard-can't-scrape-them-off-the-pan to so-soft-they-can't-be-picked-up-without-falling-apart. Failure comes in many varieties.

But!

This recipe redeemed me. These cookies turned out amazing--rich and chewy with the tiniest hint of crunch at the edges. Like a brownie in cookie form. Without eggs! And I even went out on a limb and modified the original recipe! I must say I am pr-e-tty chuffed.

Eggless Chewy Chocolate Cookies (recipe modified from here)
makes about 26-28 cookies

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup natural cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda  (if using dutch process cocoa, DO NOT add the baking soda!)
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp maple syrup
1/3 cup skim milk

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa (and baking soda if using natural cocoa) with a whisk. In a separate bowl, beat the butter with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the white & brown sugar to the butter and beat until creamy. Mix in the maple syrup. Add half of the flour mixture and beat on low speed until just combined. Add milk and beat until just combined. Add the remaining flour mixture and beat until just incorporated. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes (or, in my case, for the length of one episode of Parks & Rec).

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking pan with parchment paper and spritz with a little cooking spray. Drop rounded teaspoons of dough onto the pan. Bake for 16 minutes, then remove pan from oven and allow cookies to cool on the pan for 10 minutes. After ten minutes, you can transfer the cookies to a cooling rack.

With chocolate cookies, it is difficult to see when the are "browning" and done. I removed mine at 16 minutes and, like I said, the cookies turned out fudgy and chewy. If you are looking for a crisper cookie, I'd suggest keeping them in the oven for 17 minutes and then watching them like a hawk until they are close to your desired crispness (the cookies will continue to cook slightly as they cool on the pan). Don't burn these because you will regret it.

While making these, I learned some interesting things about cocoa powders. The original recipe called for dutch process cocoa, but I only had natural cocoa powder (Hershey's) on hand. After some googling, I found out that you can not directly substitute one for the other. Dutch process cocoa involves washing the beans in a solution which reduces acidity. Therefore, when substituting, you must convert like so:

Dutch Process to Natural Cocoa Conversion
3 Tbsp dutch process cocoa= 3 Tbsp natural cocoa + 1/8 tsp baking soda
3 Tbsp natural cocoa= 3 Tbsp dutch process cocoa - 1/8 tsp baking soda

Recipes with natural cocoa should include baking soda to neutralize its acidity.

Happy (chocolate) baking!

russian blini

As a special birthday morning surprise for Dane, I made him Russian blini (very thin crepes) for breakfast. They were a little intimidating, since traditionally the blini are paper thin, but turned out much better than I expected (and if they had been a little thick, I don't think he would have minded)!

Russian Blini (recipe from here)
2 eggs
2 cups milk
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
~2 cups flour
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
nonstick cooking spray

Whisk together eggs, milk, sugar, and salt. Slowly combine flour about 1/4 cup at a time, until the batter is runny but thicker than milk. Stir in the oil and let rest for about 5 minutes. Preheat a nonstick pan (mine was 9") over medium heat and generously oil with cooking spray.

Blinis are all in the execution, so here are a few tips: Pour about 1/4 cup of batter into the hot pan. While pouring, quickly tilt the pan in a rotating motion with your wrist so the batter creates a very thin layer over the entire surface. Cook for about 1-2 minutes until small bubbles form and the bottom is golden, then carefully flip with a spatula. Cook for 1 minute, then transfer to a plate. Spray the pan in between each blini! If your blini seems too thick (like I said, it should be paper thin--almost transparent) you can either add a bit more milk to the batter or use less batter per blini. Also, time & temperature may have to be adjusted depending on your stove. The pan should be hot enough that the batter sizzles on contact but not so hot that the blini burns in under a minute. Don't lose confidence--after the third or fourth blini you will get the hang of the rhythm of cooking these!

Don't forget to top with some sweetened condensed milk!

This recipe is pretty involved and takes a few tries to get right, so it's best to make on a weekend morning when you have plenty of time. Also keep in mind that you'll have to make a lot of blini per person (the stack in the photo has about 25-30).  The original recipe site has some great photos of the process if you need a step by step visual.

I hope I haven't intimidated you from making these--they are truly delicious and fun once you get the hang of the cooking method! This is a great recipe if you want to push yourself in the kitchen!

pumpkin cinnamon rolls

As you may remember, I had some ideas when it came to Dane's birthday shindig. The most important was making pumpkin cinnamon rolls in place of birthday cake. I'm actually not going to post the entire recipe, because I copied this recipe from smitten kitchen almost to a t (my only change was adding 1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice instead of the nutmeg/ginger/cardamom). I feel like it would be unfair to try to pass off this recipe as something I've improved or tweaked. Sometimes, you just have to follow the pro's instructions.

Oh yeah, I also have to admit that I cheated by using store-bought Buttercream frosting. Sometimes, you just have to save a few minutes.

Another confession: these photos were taken two days after I actually made the pumpkin cinnamon rolls. They finished baking at 8pm, and my kitchen has less-than-photogenic lighting. Yesterday I had to work, so these were the last three rolls left this morning when photo time "rolled" around (ha!). And I ate them afterward (in my defense, they were mini-sized).

We were excited to have our first party in our new home. We only knew a few people here before we moved to LA, so to have a growing group of new friends is exciting! Making new friends as an adult is difficult--luckily the other students in Dane's program are friendly and fun, and our friends from college are excited to show us everything LA has to offer. I feel so lucky to have friends living in nearly every area of the country, so I know that wherever I may go, there will be a familiar face to help with the transition. I do miss the familiarity (and autumn colors!) of Chicago, but I must say that I'm really starting to feel less like I'm visiting LA and more like I live here.

maple apple cobbler pie

Let me be clear about something: the weather here isn't "brisk" or "fall-like" and there is no nip in the air. It's a heat wave with the hottest temperatures LA has had all summer.

But when I saw some big, green granny smith apples at the farmer's market this week, I couldn't help myself.

Maybe it's because so many of my friends and fellow bloggers are getting excited about the coming fall weather and all that autumn entails. In this house, we are autumn lovers. Changing colors, light sweaters, Halloween, apples, pumpkin, butternut squash, crunchy leaves, cool breezes--we love it all. Which means we will have to force autumn upon southern California. Because 100 degree temps in the middle of September doesn't make sense to northerners like us.

Transition: have you ever been plagued by the decision whether to make cobbler or pie? I love them both. I've been a huge apple pie fan since I was a kid (my mom can attest that I always requested apple pie as my birthday cake). So I decided to combine the two. Revolutionary!

Putting cobbler into pie. Kind of like putting autumn into southern California.

Maple Apple Cobbler Pie (modified from here)
makes one mini-pie, but easily amplified to make more!

Butter Pie Crust

1 cup flour
pinch of salt
1/2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup butter, cut into cubes and chilled (I stuck mine in the freezer for about 10 mins)
3-5 Tbsp ice water

Combine all dry ingredients into a large bowl. Toss the butter cubes in the mixture to coat, then work in with your hands until no lumps larger than a pea remain. Add ice water 1 Tbsp at a time and stir with a fork until dough comes together, then use your hands to form dough into a ball. You can add a bit more water or flour if your dough is too dry/sticky. Dough should be smooth and pliable. Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 or more hours.

Apple Maple Cobbler Filling
1 Tbsp butter
1 large granny smith apple
scant 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
1/4 cup brown sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1/4 cup quick cooking oats

In a saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Cut apple into 1/2 inch cubes and add to melted butter. Sautee for about 5 mins, until apples are beginning to soften. Combine the cornstarch, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, and pie spice in a small bowl. Once the apples are soft, remove from heat and add dry mixture. Stir to coat the apples. Stir in maple syrup. Return to LOW heat and cook the mixture for about 5 mins until it begins to thicken. Remove from heat and stir in oats, then set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out the refrigerated dough on a clean surface to about 1/4 inch thickness. Transfer dough to a mini pie tin sprayed with cooking spray, and remove excess dough around the outside. I braided my extra dough and coiled it around the top of the pie, but you can roll it out again to make a smooth top, or roll into strips to make a criss-cross top. Add cooled filling to pie and cover with your top. You may need to pinch the top crust closed with a fork. Bake for 16-20 minutes, until crust starts turning golden brown. Cool for at least 10-12 minutes.

This is a fairly sweet apple pie. If you prefer your pie tarter (is that a word?) you can either lower the amount of brown sugar and maple syrup, or slice your apples larger. I knew that the smell was enticing (a certain someone was lurking behind me while I took photos and snatched his piece up the second I finished) and the taste was even better. Think flaky crust with extra gooey insides. Although with the heat here I should have added ice cream.

A + chocolate cupcake

I only took one semester of Home Ec. & it was in (I think?) 7th grade. It was a fun class, but the only thing I really remember was that what I called a spatula was actually called a rubber scraper. I mostly learned to cook & bake by watching my mom & lots of trial & error. I still consider myself a better cook than baker, since my cooking experiments seem to always turn out while my baking experiments are barely over a 60% success rate (even when I'm using someone else's recipe).

This cupcake is a game changer. After tasting it, I could picture myself winning Top Chef: Just Desserts... or at least getting an A+ in my Home Ec. class.

I have a suspicion that adding red food coloring would make this very similar to a red velvet cupcake, but I've never made red velvet cake so who knows what kind of crack they put in that stuff (disclaimer: there is no crack cocaine present in this recipe, only an added chocolate drizzle on top).

This is modified from Emma's basic chocolate cupcake recipe. She also does an A+ job with the recipes she posts. The only "complaint" I have is that the recipe states "makes 1 dozen" but I got 25 cupcakes out of it. It was horrible! :)

A+ Chocolate Cupcake (modified from here)
makes about 2 dozen

2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa
2 cups sugar
2 tsps baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold coffee
1 1/2 cups water
2/3 cups oil
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, mixing just until batter is no longer lumpy. Pour the batter into lined cupcake tins, filling each cup 3/4 of the way full. Turn the over down to 325 degrees & bake for 23-25 minutes.

Chocolate Drizzle
1 bar of Hershey's milk chocolate
2 Tbsp butter
approx. 3 Tbsp cream

Break up the chocolate bar & melt with the butter in a microwave safe dish (mine took about 50 secs to melt, but watch it closely!!). Mix well with a fork, then slowly add the cream 1 Tbsp at a time, mixing well in between. Use the fork to drizzle over cupcakes.

You know what? These cupcakes are vegan! I didn't want to lead with that cause it scares some people away (the chocolate drizzle, however, does contain dairy).

I made these yesterday, and I think they tasted even better today, out of the fridge. I'm surprised they even lasted that long.